


Growing Pains

by Webtrinsic



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Anger, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Brother-Sister Relationships, Chronic Pain, Fainting, Hurt Ahsoka Tano, Lekku and Montral Injury, Lekkus (Star Wars), Medical Trauma, Protective Anakin Skywalker, Protective Obi-Wan Kenobi, Restraints, Sad Ending, Serious Injuries, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27873733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Webtrinsic/pseuds/Webtrinsic
Summary: As she get's older, her lekku get longer and her montrals grow taller. It's a less than pleasant existence, especially when at war.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 8
Kudos: 210





	Growing Pains

**Author's Note:**

> legit seeing ahsoka in live action garroted me, i wasn't thrilled with the lekku but i get there reasoning, still there was ways they could have fixed it but ill leave that up to later dates since her contract is long, also her theme had me crying, cant wait till thats on the album so i can download it :)
> 
> also i said it once, i said it twice, i will say it again and provide: I NEED MORE FICS OF HER LEKKU AND MONTRALS HURT

A togruta’s lekku and montrals were of constant growth. With such developments constantly going underway it was crucial for a togruta to be mindful of their nutrition and in the cases they were hurt, help aid the body because even while fighting sickness and healing wounds, the body persisted in their tendrils growth.

Ahsoka is no exception, not to her body's natural way of functioning, or the pain that accompanies it. 

It hadn’t been so bad when she was younger, it’d been arduous no doubt but the pain hadn’t overtaken her. She’d only recently found out that was because Jedi Master Shaak Ti and Master Plo Koon had been constant in the healing process.

It had been hard to remember due to this constant bustle of the force her young mind had no way of truly grasping. The brain often does blot out the harshest of pains if they are necessary so it can continue its cycle of doing it again. 

Except now the pain ravages her. She is in the middle of battle, her lekku and montrals tender, they’d been that way upon landing and through the briefing as well. But now as warships fly over head, bombs break the terrain, the white and blue stripes adorning her features are quickly becoming swollen.

The slightest bit of dust and shrapnel scraping past the appendages nearly send her careening over the nearby cliff face. 

A trooper who she doesn’t recognize is the only thing that keeps her from falling over. The sounds around her are louder than they’d ever been, and even before with her hearing it’d been manageable. 

Often it pushed that limit but she’d never let it stop her. It does now though and that’s the problem. There is pain and stimulation that forces pressure at the backs of her eyes so she drowns in her tears. 

There is a small part of her chastising herself for acting this way on the battlefield but the pain she is experiencing doesn’t care.

Her hands burn her appendages when instinct pulls her tan skin up to them in hope of some relief. The clone at her side is asking her something, likely if she is okay, and maybe he’s not even doing that. 

The clone could be calling for her master, she can’t feel his precence, her predicament pushing the force past her hypothetical arms way. She’s likely projecting as well. Loud enough that she could be jeopardizing everything and everyone.

As far as they know there are no siths here, just droids, except that doesn’t make it any better. One could arrive and one could walk into the open door of her mind while she writhes on her knees in agony being protected by a clone she wishes she knew the name of, and they could reap her of this war and this life all in one go.

The nameless trooper beside her went flying over the edge next to her with a gust of dirt slashing across her from under Grievous's talons.

His presence didn’t exactly startle her, nothing could at the moment as she struggled, throat catching as his mechanical fist pulled her up by her windpipe.

The lack of air was a blessing in that it blotted out the pain. In the air there was nothing but sound to irritate her stripped head tails. The sound ringing out into nothingness whether because the war around her stopped at the sight of her in the enemy’s clutches, or the lack of oxygen effectively cut everything out. It didn’t exactly matter.

Her body rose a little farther into the air, her toes inches above the rubble, only touching when his grip stumbled as he coughed causing her to touch back to earth for a second.

The small movements as she hung limp had her already blurred vision blotting out into blackness as the droid commander spoke words she couldn’t make out.

Before unconsciousness could fully take her, a green saber slammed into the hulking figure sending her into a free fall. The togruta was stolen by darkness the second her lekku made contact with the ground.

Obi-Wan could do nothing to catch his grand padawan as he feuded with Grievous. The ginger man knew he needed to capture the general, except as much as he tried to be, he wasn’t perfect. The small bond he had with his padawan displayed a pain he couldn’t ignore, so with and without his better judgement, he rammed into the metal body. Bruising his skin on impact alone, sending the general off the edge before ordering the troops after him.

The canyon in seconds was overrun by speeders, the presence of Master Unduli and Plo Koon giving chase. 

His body ached begging to stop for a second and regain his breath but he couldn’t, not when he didn’t know if Ahsoka’s own windpipe had been crushed.

Shifting the togruta in his arms, he immediately felt how swollen her lekku were when his hand accidentally brushed her back head tail causing her body to shiver.

Leaning her head back with her chin, utilizing his eyes and the force he felt out for her battered throat, relieved it wasn’t broken but in case it decided to swell up as well she needed medical attention.

“Obi-Wan, did you find her?” The green light on his comm fluttered with his padawan’s frantic voice.

“Yes Anakin, I have her. I’m going to have a medevac take her back to Coruscant. I’m afraid there’s something irritating her montrals and Grievous did a number on her throat.” He doesn’t want to tell Anakin this, knowing it will be on his mind the rest of the mission especially since he cannot go back to Coruscant with her. 

But if it had been him and Anakin in Ahsoka’s place, he’d have wanted to know the extent of his padawan’s injuries so his imagination didn’t run off from him.

The other man's voice didn’t come through again, just a static crackle, Obi-Wan doesn’t know if that’s a good thing.

* * *

The numbing agent is injected directly into the fatter portions of her head tails. She is restrained, they had said it was so she didn’t hurt herself, but the way the healers eye her she knows it’s because they think she’ll hurt them. Understandable, and truthfully they are right in a way.  
  
She’d prefer to be laying on her stomach, and not on her back, where her throbbing back head tail is pressed on by her weight.

In fact the pressure alone is dulling the medication making the skin burn and her wrist tug at her binds. 

It’s a reflex when she pulls but they don’t seem to care because the minute they notice they add another to her forearms and another to her shins.

Ahsoka knows it’s simply so they can act quicker if her throat tries to swell, but they’d already concluded the worst was over and with the anti-inflammatory they were clogging her veins with it shouldn’t be a problem.

At least intrinsically her body and mind should urge that no matter if she is restrained and in some discomfort she is still safe. They should, but they don’t. 

Her mind races and she continues to pull, begging silently for release because at the moment she can’t even rasp out a plea. The teen wants her master. 

She wants the gentle quiet only broken by his firm and steady heartbeats, maybe master’s kenobi’s as well if it wasn’t too loud, and sturdy built arms to coil her home where there is no worry of her agony befalling her to threats her big brother would face readily.

Blue and white flash, the appendages switching from a glacier rapid to a lava plume in a matter of seconds. Again and again until the frost is melted and hell has frozen over.

A deliriously frightening image paints itself in her head, a touch by anyone on the horn like peaks on her heads, tearing the appendages off all in one go with no blood to even flow and her hearing to cease. 

The fifteen year old's body jumps in retaliation, a grueling whine peeling the inside of her throat as she begins to thrash. 

“Ahsoka!” The healers startle, readying needles and more restraints as the girl's hazy mind manages to call upon the force to send the nearest shelf toppling off its hinges, luckily the only thing atop the shelf being a sealed shut box of gauze.

She’s never liked the healers or even going to them, and it’s as close to hate as she’s allowed to feel as one of them and a droid disregard her pain and cause her more by grabbing her lekku in an attempt to make her stop. 

The togruta roars and the force breaks the droid and two and sends the healer flying before the fifteen year old loses consciousness.

* * *

If her outburst had startled them, it is nothing compared to her master’s breakdown when he gets there. She can’t remember much of it, just his shouts and frantic hands at her restraints. 

He’d picked her up as well, exposing to the healers her back lekku which had at some point in the scuffle shifted so it had folded on itself. The whole area was bruised purple, nearly black. One would even call it sprained.

He’d held her, taken some bacta patches and marched them back to his room. Applying a gentle coat by dripping the substance onto the area, careful not to actually touch the appendages.

When she’s fully lucid she realizes they are on the couch, her head pillowed on her master’s chest as he watches a holo without the sound, basic subtitles flowing beneath the image. 

“My lekku hurt,” her words have the consistency of chalk, and it earns her a soft pet on the back of the neck before he adjusts and sits her up and hands her a glass.

His eyes are full of concern and she can see him physically holding back words with how sharp is jaw is.

Their bond is garroted for a moment with how much reassurance he thrust upon her person. It makes her head light and limbs go slack, allowing gravity to pull her back to her big brother’s chest to catch up on some sleep.

His heart beat seems to be the only pleasant sound.

* * *

There is an apology in order and it’s not from Anakin or Ahsoka. That doesn’t mean it comes to be because Anakin forbids Ahsoka be tended to by these _monsters_ and the council, even during the war and spread thin, accommodate to this request due to the girls bruised back lekku.

Shaak Ti cooks up a specially made formula from Shili to help quell the young togruta’s more serious pains. The recipe and supplies are added to Kix’s log.

There is not a living breathing soul on the Resolute who doesn’t know it. They are there to protect the Jedi and fight for them, and when the safety and comfort of their little sister is on the line they will do what it takes to make it better.

There is still pain in her montrals, at times it is worse than others. There are days when she’s bemoans and breaks down into a fit of tears knowing this is forever.

This is an ailment that will be with her until the day she dies and her lekku stop growing. It is a pain in war she learns to drown.

It becomes manageable like every other shrill ache she faces. She overhears her master’s concerned voice speak with Shaak Ti, asking if there is more he can do or if it will just go away, and why is she so greatly affected.

The violet eyed woman answers solemnly until her graceful voice develops a melancholy lilt, “No master Skywalker, the pain will not get better but it will become more manageable. Some togruta are simply affected more than others, and in our eyes we often see the ones who experience the most pain are the strongest and brightest of them all,”

That may very well be but Ahsoka does not see it as a blessing. 

Years later as she hobbles with bruised ribs, facing a figure she once loved now clad in black, she knows not even the torture of her ever growing lekku and montrals will compare.  
  
Although in raising her blinding sabers that reflect in Ezra’s shocked and austounded eyes as he scurries to safety. The ones she loved, broken (Obi-Wan), dead (Plo Koon and Shaak Ti), and gone (Anakin): she is deemed the strongest of them all.

**Author's Note:**

> Snap: allisonw1122  
> Tumblr/twitter: webtrinsic1122  
> Insta:Webtrinsic


End file.
